As the e-commerce market heats up and more companies are jumping in to make the most of the online shopping trend, there is a need for ensuring that delivery commitments are met. With more companies selling the same commodities there is heavy competition on two fronts; the price and delivery of the goods. People look at sites that offer better prices and discounts. They also see which company is going to deliver the goods the fastest.
When you go to a shop and buy something, you get the product in your hand immediately. But with e-commerce, the customer must wait until the product reaches him or her. Nobody wants to wait too long to lay their hands on something they have liked and purchased. This is especially true with items that people buy for their personal use. They can’t wait to get them and share their experiences on social media.
Timely Delivery Depends On Proper Warehouse Management
If you want to do timely delivery you must have your warehouse properly managed. When there is a rush of orders from customers your warehouse must allow for easy searching and picking of products. When companies offer same-day or next-day delivery they make sure that these products are placed in such a way that they can be located and picked up easily when an order is received. But it is not enough to think about it when you receive the order. The planning starts from the minute the goods arrive from the manufacturer.
Good warehouse management system software is what is required to properly arrange goods in the warehouse to facilitate prompt delivery. Such software will guide you to store the goods in such a manner that you can locate the product and pick it up quickly. If there are products that are marked for same-day delivery, then the software can tell you where you must ideally place these for the quickest delivery.
What Should The Software Do For You?
When you buy a warehouse management software there are four basic functions which it does for you. It helps you to record your incoming goods and guides you to store them according to various parameters like shape, size, and frequency of orders. The software will help you in optimally using the warehouse space. Space is becoming very difficult to get and you must use it in the best manner.
The software will help you pick the product by locating it and letting you know the best way to access the product. This will help you to quickly pick the product for delivery. The software will also help you in finalizing the shipping of the product. It will analyze the product and the destination and the delivery requirements. The information will allow the software to tell you which is the best shipping method for that particular order.
Features of a Warehouse Management Software You Must Have
There are certain features that your warehouse management system in Singapore must certainly have for it to be of the best use to you. Tracking incoming goods is the first task that it should perform. The software must use the barcode or RFID tags on the goods to make the necessary entries. The software must allow you to program the order execution method as per your industry standards. It can be the first-in-first-out method or last-in-first-out method.
Real-time tracking of the inventory is very essential instead of your having to do cycle counting. This information is very important to know how much of a product is available at any point in time. Decisions can be taken correctly if this information is available to the management. It will also help in deciding future strategies.
An important requirement for any software is disaster recovery. In case of failure will the software have a backup ready so that your business doesn’t come to a standstill. You must have this feature because software failure can happen at any time. You must know whether the software will integrate with a transport management or order management system which you might already have.
Advantages of WMS over SCM and ERP
There are two software packages which many companies may already have which may seem to include the functionalities of the warehouse management system software. ERP is an overall software package that focuses on all the functions in a company. You may get an insight into all the functions in the company. But it doesn’t go into much detail which will help you improve your working in the warehouse.
The SCM software will include all the functions that affect the movement of goods like transportation and other distribution aspects. But it doesn’t go deep into how you can utilize your warehouse in the best fashion and make deliveries faster. A WMS certainly is what you need if you want to optimize the works in the warehouse.
A good WMS software will help you with every detail in the warehouse including how to use the space to place optimally by correctly placing your pallets, shelves and other equipment after analyzing the nature of your goods. This will help you to place your FIFO and LIFO goods in a manner in which they can be easily picked up.
